On August 4, 2026, Professor of Art History Ray Hernández-Durán @rhernand65 and Irene Vásquez, Chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies, were interviewed about their work on the exhibition, Voces del Pueblo
Welcome Our New Art Education Faculty, Rachel Zollinger
We’re excited to welcome Rachel Zollinger to our faculty this Fall as our newest professor in Art Education.
Rachel Zollinger is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and scholar whose research explores multispecies and emplaced pedagogies at the intersection of science, environmental, and art education. Her work investigates diverse ways of inhabiting and knowing the world through creative practice, bringing together drawing, mixed-media sculpture, digital media, site-specific installation, socioecological performance, writing, and teaching. Inspired by the relationships between people and place, rocks, roots, rivers, grasses, and lichens are among her recurring aesthetic and methodological influences.
Rachel earned her PhD in Art and Visual Culture Education, with a minor in Science Education, from the University of Arizona, an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Sierra Nevada College, and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico. She has worked extensively in community spaces, museums, and other informal learning environments, developing arts integration curricula and environmental education programming.
In addition to her creative and teaching practice, Rachel serves as an editor for the International Journal for Education Through Art, an associate editor for the interdisciplinary plant studies journal Plant Perspectives, and is a co-founder of Submergence Collective, an art and ecology research group.
Please join us in welcoming Rachel Zollinger to the Department of Art. We look forward to what she will bring to our Art Education program and to our students.
Bianka Groves De La Cruz, Arts MFA, Featured in The Line Exhibition and Studio Talk 2026
MFA ceramics student Bianka Groves De La Cruz is gaining recognition for her thoughtful and patient approach to ceramics. She is currently featured in the “The Line” exhibition, September 4–26, 2026, which showcases artists who use line work to explore...
Welcoming Postdoc Afrooz Partovi to CFA
Afrooz Partovi is an artist-architect who explores intangible dimensions of time and space through immersive technologies and time-based media.


